Ray Suarez
PBS NewsHour
Ray Suarez joined The NewsHour in October 1999 as a Washington-based Senior Correspondent.
Suarez has more than thirty years of varied experience in the news business. He came to The NewsHour from National Public Radio where he had been host of the nationwide, call-in news program "Talk of the Nation" since 1993. Prior to that, he spent seven years covering local, national, and international stories for the NBC-owned station, WMAQ-TV in Chicago.
He is the author most recently of a book examining the tightening relationship between religion and politics in America, The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America. Suarez also wrote The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration (Free Press), and has contributed to several other books, including What We See (New Village Press, 2010), How I Learned English (National Geographic, 2007), Brooklyn: A State of Mind (Workman, 2001), Local Heroes (Norton, 2000), Saving America's Treasures (National Geographic, 2000), and Las Christmas (Knopf, 1998). Suarez currently hosts the monthly radio program “America Abroad” for Public Radio International, and the weekly politics program “Destination Casa Blanca” for Hispanic Information Telecommunications Network, HITN TV.
Earlier in his career, Suarez was a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, a producer for the ABC Radio Network in New York, a reporter for CBS Radio in Rome, and a reporter for various American and British news services in London. Over the years he has narrated, anchored or reported many documentaries for public radio and television including the nationally-broadcast Anatomy of a Pandemic (2009, PBS) and Jerusalem: The Center of the World (2009, PBS), a weekly series, Follow the Money (1997, PBS), and programs including Yesterday (2006, WETA) Who Speaks for Islam? (LinkTV, 2005, 2009) By The People (PBS, 2004-07), The Journey Home (2004, WETA) The Execution Tapes (2001, Public Radio) and Through Our Own Eyes (2000, KQED). He is the host of the monthly foreign affairs program America Abroad, heard on Public Radio International stations nationwide, and around the world on NPR Worldwide. He also hosts the weekly program on Latino politics, Destination Casa Blanca for HITN-TV.
Suarez was a co-recipient of NPR's 1993-94 and 1994-95 duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Awards for on-site coverage of the first all-race elections in South Africa and the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, respectively. He was honored with the 1996 Ruben Salazar Award from the National Council of La Raza, and the 2005 Distinguished Policy Leadership Award from UCLA's School of Public Policy. The Holy Vote won a 2007 Latino Book Award for Best Religion Book.
Suarez holds a B.A. in African History from New York University and an M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by many colleges and universities, most recently by Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He is a winner of the Benton Fellowship in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Chicago. He has also been honored with a Distinguished Alumnus Award from NYU, and a Professional Achievement Award from the University of Chicago.
A Life Member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Suarez was a founding member of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children.
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